The Centre on Monday decided to send four Union ministers to countries bordering Ukraine to coordinate and oversee the evacuation of Indians in an attempt to blunt the criticism over multiple counts.
The Narendra Modi government has come under attack over its slow pace as well as its attempts to turn the rescue mission, Operation Ganga, into a public relations exercise when thousands of students are still stuck in the conflict zone.
The decision to send minister Hardeep Puri to Hungary, Kiren Rijiju to Slovakia, Jyotiraditya Scindia to Romania and Moldova and V.K. Singh to Poland was taken at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held to take stock of the evacuation effort from Ukraine.
The announcement came in the midst of the Opposition and even a BJP MP amplifying the growing alarm among students stranded in different parts of Ukraine.
What particularly needled was the manner in which the Modi government sought to turn the evacuation into a public relations event, getting ministers to welcome the students arriving in India and talking up the efforts put in to bring them out.
The most damaging blow to the government was struck by BJP MP Varun Gandhi. He borrowed a phrase used by the Prime Minister himself — “aapda mein avsar’’ — during the pandemic to advise the government: “Don’t see opportunity in every crisis.’
Varun said 15,000 Indian students are stuck in a conflict zone because the government had failed to take prompt action at the right time.
Commenting on the penchant of the Modi dispensation to take credit for doing what is the bounden duty of any government, Varun tweeted that bringing them back is not a favour but the job of the government.
Several students complained that they were not getting the promised help from the Indian embassies and they were being discriminated against by Ukrainian security personnel at the border with Poland where they had been advised to go along with other borders to the west of the country.
Foreign secretary Harsh V. Shringla briefed the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs on the situation in Ukraine. He sought to assure MPs that there was no adverse sentiment against Indians in Ukraine amid reports that Indian students were bring segregated at the border near Poland.
Since the evacuation began last week, six flights carrying a total of 1,396 Indians had arrived in Delhi and Mumbai till Monday evening. The effort to claim credit from the very first flight carrying 219 passengers raised eyebrows, considering a bulk of Indians are still unable to get out of Ukraine through its land borders.
“Modi govt had sufficient lead time to evacuate Indians from Ukraine with Russia declaring its military intentions. Instead focus is on propaganda, spin & photo ops. GoI must get its act together & evacuate hapless Indians like it did during the Gulf War,” tweeted CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, sharing a distress call video.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi shared some of the videos and urged the government to act while accusing the Prime Minister of being “Missing in Action”.
Opinion is divided on the utility of sending ministers to oversee the evacuation. While some said their presence sometimes helps speed things up, others argued the ministers would only divert and use up embassy resources at a time the missions were already stretched.
Briefing journalists about Operation Ganga, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said an estimated 8,000 of the 22,000 Indians in Ukraine had left the country since the initial advisory was issued on February 15.
While the government has advised all Indians to move westwards, the ministry on Monday said that while doing so, they should avoid heading straight to the borders. Instead, they should seek shelter in bordering towns and then coordinate with the mission staff before moving to the exit points to avoid the crowds of Ukrainians and foreigners trying to flee the country.
Bagchi sought to allay fears that there would not be flights to take them to India if they got delayed. “Flights are not the constraint. We will add more flights as needed. As of now, three more evacuation flights will head for India over the next 24 hours — two from Budapest to Delhi and one from Bucharest to Mumbai.”
Apart from the borders with Hungary, Romania, Poland and Slovakia, India has now made arrangements for Indian students to exit from the Moldovan border, from where they will be brought overland to Romania to fly out.
